Please Welcome Back Mystery Author Matthew Arkin

with Matthew Arkin

We are delighted to welcome back mystery author Matthew Arkin to Omnimystery News.

Last week we discussed his new novel In the Country of the Blind (Hawkshaw Books; March 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we asked him if he could tell us more about what he calls his "long journey of writing [his] first novel."

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Photo provided courtesy of
Matthew Arkin

To paraphrase T. S. Elliot, "talent imitates, genius steals." Or perhaps I should not have bothered with the attribution and just said it, because while I lay no claim to genius, I do consider myself a thief. I come by it honestly. I learned at the knee of my mother, Barbara Dana, herself an award-winning YA author, who committed larceny upon me and my brothers throughout our youth. She would observe and eavesdrop, notebook in hand. She would stall just outside the door to the living room or the den when we were hanging around the house with our friends, stealing snippets of conversation, ransacking our childhoods and adolescences. Then she would scurry off with her booty, lock herself in her pirate's lair of a writing study, and emerge months later with a novel in hand, the stories of our lives craftily reworked into an entertaining and universal tale.

Years later, when I would embark on the long journey of writing my first novel, her technique came back to me, as did her words: "Write what you know." I had not been planning a career as an author, so I didn't have a "snatch pile," my mother's term for the collection of notebooks and scraps of paper on which she kept her pilfered stories and quotations. I am blessed, however, with an amazing memory for story, joke, anecdote, plot, personality trait and quirk. I attribute this to my careers, first as an attorney and then as an actor, or maybe it is just there, a biological blessing. In any event, it has been a great boon in my previous pursuits, and now that I am entering a life of crime as a writer, I find that I draw on this recall in the creation of event and character.

But what is this theft of which I am speaking? And why on earth would anyone aspire to it? Don't we want, above all else, to create something original? Some would argue that it's not possible. Mark Twain, in a letter to Helen Keller, claimed that "substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them."

If this is true, then where does one's own art come into the equation? I think it is in how we go about reframing and reinterpreting universal stories, ideas, and truths. We should not worry about finding new things to say. We should trust that the individual stories of our own lives contain universalities and values that need to be retold and reaffirmed. Then, focus on new ways to say these old things, these archetypal tales. Learn to say them in a language, in a style, that fits with your time and your culture. Put them in your own language, in a setting and plot that will reach your own audience. We can't foolishly shoplift a piece of ornate jewelry, pawn it off on an unsuspecting public, and expect riches in return. Rather, we have to pry the gem, the idea, from its old, outdated setting, no matter how precious and ornate. Then, we use our own skill to reset it anew in a fresh and creative way. That is the only way in which originality can be found.

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Matthew Arkin is a critically acclaimed actor, an acting teacher, and a recovering attorney. He attributes his skill for crafting dialogue and creating characters to his more than forty-five years of experience on stage, television, and film, and to reading approximately one suspense thriller per week since he was a young child.

Following the advice of one of his moms, author Barbara Dana, to "write what you know," Arkin created Zach Brandis and the novel In the Country of the Blind. Like Zach, Arkin gave up a career as a lawyer. Like Zach, he was born and raised, went to law school and spent most of his life in and around New York City. His love affair with the city, his life as a former attorney, and his experiences as the victim of cult abuse allow him to approach Zach’s story with poignant, candid depth and realism.

For more information about Matthew and his work, please visit his website at MatthewArkin.com or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

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In the Country of the Blind
Matthew Arkin
A Zach Brandis Mystery

A dead body is a lousy way to end a first date.

When Zach abandoned his promising legal career, it confused everyone, including himself. Now, with no apparent purpose in life, he has time enough on his hands to get into some very hot water.

When Zach takes Cynthia Hull to dinner, murder and a confrontation with the cops are the last things on his mind. But when he walks her home, he finds himself face to face with New York's finest, who are investigating the suspicious death of the actress's roommate and friend, Alex Penworth. Maybe it's because Cynthia is beautiful and vulnerable, or maybe it's just because the cops rub him the wrong way, but Zach steps in to shield her from their persistent questions. In the days following, Zach finds himself increasingly tied up in knots over the case, and what starts as simple curiosity may end up putting the former attorney in grave danger.

Captivated by the puzzle of Alex's death, Zach begins to play with the pieces. When Cynthia's apartment is ransacked shortly the murder, it becomes clear that Alex was hiding something, something of value to someone. Looking into Alex's mysterious activities in the weeks before his death, more questions begin to emerge: Why was Alex fired from his bartending job? Why is a beautiful undercover narc hanging around the bar where Alex worked, and trying to keep Zach away? Why do the cops seem uninterested in the inconsistencies in Alex's autopsy report? As Zach puts the pieces in place, a picture of the victim begins to emerge: Alex, another lost soul, plagued by his past and the demons of the cult he escaped — a man who, like Zach, abandoned a promising career to struggle as a going-nowhere actor/bartender. Driven by his feeling of kinship with the victim, can Zach discover what ultimately led to Alex's death, and still get himself out of harm's way before it's too late?